House sales indicators (HSI)| Contact |
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| Contact organisation | National Statistical Institute |
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| Contact organisation unit | Consumer Prices, Housing prices and PPP Department |
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| Contact name | Albena Dancheva |
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| Contact person function | Head of Department |
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| Contact mail address | 2 Panayot Volov Str., 1038 Sofia |
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| Contact email address | [email protected] |
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| Contact phone number | +359 2 9857 767 |
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| Contact fax number | |
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| Metadata update |
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| Metadata last certified | 04 July 2025 |
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| Metadata last posted | 04 July 2025 |
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| Metadata last update | 04 July 2025 |
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| Statistical presentation |
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| Data description | House sales indicators (HSI) are additional indicators that complement House price indices (HPI) data and give more comprehensive picture of the housing market in Bulgaria. House sales cover the total number and value of dwellings transactions at national level (both houses and flats) where the purchaser is a household. The following house sales indicators are calculated: • value of transactions in dwellings (current prices); • number of transactions in dwellings. HSI cover all purchases of households (new for households and between households). Transactions of luxurious dwellings are also included. Donations and inheritances are excluded as non-market transactions. |
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| Classification system | National HSI are published according to the following categories: 1. Purchases of dwellings 1.1. Purchases of new dwellings 1.2. Purchases of existing dwellings Regional HPI series are published for the following levels: - statistical zones according Classification of Territorial Units for Statistics in Bulgaria (NUTS1) - statistical regions according Classification of Territorial Units for Statistics in Bulgaria (NUTS2) - for the six cities with population more than 120 000 inhabitants |
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| Sector coverage | ESA 95 sector S. 14 (Household sector). HSI cover residential properties purchased by households in the reference period irrespective of the type of area in which they live, their position in the income distribution and their nationality status. |
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| Statistical concepts and definitions | Published data are: 1) House sales indicators (HSI) of value of transactions, national level • HSI of value of transactions, national level - previous quarter = 100 • HSI of value of transactions, national level - corresponding quarter of the previous year = 100 • HSI of value of transactions, national level - percentage in the year 2) House sales indicators (HSI) of value of transactions, by regions • HSI of value of transactions by statistical regions - previous quarter = 100 • HSI of value of transactions by statistical regions - corresponding quarter of the previous year = 100 • HSI of value of transactions by statistical regions - percentage in the year • HSI of value of transactions for the six cities with population more than 120 000 inhabitants - previous quarter = 100 • HSI of value of transactions for the six cities with population more than 120 000 inhabitants - corresponding quarter of the previous year = 100 • HSI of value of transactions for the six cities with population more than 120 000 inhabitants - percentage in the year 3) House sales indicators (HSI) of number of transactions, national level • HSI of number of transactions, national level - previous quarter = 100 • HSI of number of transactions, national level - corresponding quarter of the previous year = 100 • HSI of number of transactions, national level - percentage in the year 4) House sales indicators (HSI) of number of transactions, by regions • HSI of number of transactions by statistical regions - previous quarter = 100 • HSI of number of transactions by statistical regions - corresponding quarter of the previous year = 100 • HSI of number of transactions by statistical regions - percentage in the year • HSI of number of transactions for the six cities with population more than 120 000 inhabitants - previous quarter = 100 • HSI of number of transactions for the six cities with population more than 120 000 inhabitants - corresponding quarter of the previous year = 100 • HSI of number of transactions for the six cities with population more than 120 000 inhabitants - percentage in the year. |
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| Statistical unit | Market price of a dwelling purchased by a private household. |
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| Statistical population | HSI covers all monetary transactions of residential properties (new and existing apartments) on the territory of the country, purchased by private domestic and nondomestic households. |
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| Reference area | HSI cover the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria. HSI are available at very detailed level but due to the limited number of transactions data are representative NUTS level 2 and for the six cities with population over 120000 inhabitants. |
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| Time coverage | • value of transactions – annual data are available since 2010; • value of transactions - quarterly data are available since Q1 2016; • number of transactions in dwellings - quarterly data are available since Q1 2016. Regional HSI are available since Q1 2022. |
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| Base period | Not published. |
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| Unit of measure |
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The following units are used: • quarterly rate - percentage change compared to the previous quarter; • annual rate - percentage change compared to the same quarter of the previous year; • percentage in the year - the share of each quarter from the total value for the year (in %). |
| Reference period |
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Quarter |
| Institutional mandate |
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| Legal acts and other agreements | All relevant regulations can be found in the Housing Price Statistics section on Eurostat's website under => Legislation. National Statistical Programme . House sales data are compiled on a voluntary basis. |
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| Data sharing | None. |
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| Confidentiality |
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| Confidentiality - policy | • Law on Statistics; • Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society. http://www.nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/pages/LegalBasis_e/Consolidated_version_of_amended_Regulation_223_2009_EN.pdf |
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| Confidentiality - data treatment | lndividual data are not published in accordance with article 25 of the Law on Statistics. The publishing of individual data can be performed only in accordance with article 26 of the same law. |
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| Release policy |
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| Release calendar | HSI are released quarterly - 85 days after the end of the reference quarter. Date of publication of the statistical information is specified at the Release Calendar presenting the results of the statistical surveys carried out by the National Statistical Institute. |
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| Release calendar access | The calendar is available on the NSI website: http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/480 |
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| User access | HSI are published on the NSI website in section Housing price statistics in accordance with the Law on Statistics and the European Statistics Code of Practice respecting the professional independence and aimed at objectivity, transparency and equal treatment of all consumers. |
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| Frequency of dissemination |
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Quarterly |
| Accessibility and clarity |
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| News release | None. |
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| Publications | None. |
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| On-line database | HPI are available to all users on the NSI website under the heading Housing price statistics: http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/13023 |
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| Micro-data access | Microdata are not diseminated. |
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| Other | None. |
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| Documentation on methodology | EU and EC regulations: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/housing-price-statistics/legislation |
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| Quality documentation | None. |
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| Quality management |
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| Quality assurance | All data are checked for completeness and consistency with statistical concepts and definitions. |
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| Quality assessment | According to Article 2, point 3 from the Law on Statistics the statistical information shall be produced in compliance with the following criteria for quality: adequacy, accuracy, timeliness, punctuality, accessibility and clarity, comparability and logical consistency. |
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| Relevance |
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| User needs | Housing statistics are key for policy makers but also for households due to their economic and social importance. These indicators, also, support not only medium and long-term analyses of housing market activities as a key sector of the economy but in addition allow monitoring crisis effects. The main national users are: BNB, Ministries, National and State Agencies; information media; Major international user are : Eurostat, ECB, IMF, UN ECE. |
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| User satisfaction | None. |
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| Completeness | Not applicable. |
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| Accuracy and reliability |
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| Overall accuracy | Overall accuracy is not estimated. HSI are still provisional, hence methodological and technical improvements are constantly implemented. |
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| Sampling error | None. HSI are based on an administrative data source, which covers all market transactions. |
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| Non-sampling error | Non-sampling errors are not quantified for the HSI. NSI tries to reduce non-sampling errors through continuous methodological improvements and validation methods which help us to avoid coding and typing errors. |
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| Timeliness and punctuality |
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| Timeliness | Data are published according to NSI Release calendar - 85 days after the end of the reference quarter. |
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| Punctuality | Data are always delivered and published on the pre-announced release dates. |
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| Coherence and comparability |
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| Comparability - geographical | HSI data are calculated on both national and regional levels. The regional data are fully comparable with one another. |
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| Comparability - over time | Published data are comparable over time. |
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| Coherence - cross domain | Only one HSI set is available. |
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| Coherence - internal | HSI are internally coherent. |
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| Cost and burden |
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| Data revision |
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| Data revision - policy | HSI are revisable under the terms of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1921/2001 of 28 September 2001. Published HSI may be revised for mistakes, new or improved information and methodological improvements. |
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| Data revision - practice | HSI are published as preliminary and are usually confirmed or revised in the following quarter. |
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| Statistical processing |
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| Source data | HSI are based on the value and number of transactions from tha PR dataset in combination with data from the Cadastral Administrative-Information System. |
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| Frequency of data collection | Quarterly |
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| Data collection | Information from the PR and CAIS is collected for the compilation of the value and number of transactions for HSI. PR data are collected monthly trough a web application for automated secure connection between NSI and the Registry Agency. Records from PR provide information about all the transactions occurred on the real estate market during previous quarter as well as on transactions’ value. Cadastral data are available online as open data. Records contain the necessary information to define the residential properties from the whole universe of the transacted real estates in the country. The PR and CAIS data are merged using a property (cadastral) identification number as a key variable. |
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| Data validation | Data control procedures are incorporated in the software and automatic data cleaning is done quarterly to remove cases of obviously erroneous data. Variables available in both registers passes through pre-defined validation rules during the merging process in order to avoid the incorrect determination of dwellings and dwellings’ characteristics. |
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| Data compilation | Data management in HSI compilation include the following: • determination of the purpose of the property (residential/non-residential) The real estates for residential purposes are defined among all properties in the PR in three steps: - for all properties with available cadastral number information is taken from the Cadaster register; - for the remaining properties (without cadastral number) the software uses a pre-defined dictionary of words and/or part of words and an automathic search is done in the property’s descriprion field; - properties that still remain undefined are checked and manually determined as residential/non-residential after a detail research in the information in the PR and in the Cadaster. • determination of the type of transactions (residential/non-residential/mixed) depending on the purpose of the properties included in each transaction. • Data cleaning of non-market sales as well as transactions where buyer is a non-household (legal entity). Excluded are the following: - transactions of the state and the municipalities; - “non-market” transactions, such as inheritances and donations, social schemes, sales by a judge executor, etc.; - transactions of non-residential properties; - transactions from individuals (households) to other sectors. • Stratification of data by: - the type of purchased dwellings (new/existing dwellings), - geographical area (defined at district level). • For each strata are calculated: - value of transactions – measured by the total sum of the value of dwellings transactions within the quarter; - number of transactions in dwellings - measured by the count of all residential transactions within the quarter. |
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| Adjustment | No seasonal or calendar adjustments are made. |
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| Comment |
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